


Worth the Wait

by macabre_monkey



Series: Unexpected [3]
Category: The Last Herald Mage, Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Intimacy, M/M, Mention of past Vanyel/Randale, Mention of past Vanyel/Tantras, Pillow Talk, ex boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:46:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre_monkey/pseuds/macabre_monkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe"> typhe</a>'s prompt, <i>Van/Stef pillow talk, of the kind where Stef tries to get Van to talk about his sexual preferences/history more. </i></p><p>It is completely not necessary to read the first two fics in this series, which are loosely related kink PWPs anyway. This is essentially a stand alone but since it mentions kink, I thought it belonged here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth the Wait

The air was heavy with the scent of honeysuckles outside in the palace pleasure garden; crickets were playing their night song, with the frogs in the ornamental pond chirping a counterpoint. The drapes at the window and the bedcurtains had been pushed back so that any passing breeze would find its way in to cool the occupants of the large and opulent bed. Stefen lay on his back, with Vanyel’s head pillowed on his chest, and Van’s arms and legs wrapped around him possessively. 

He knew Van wasn’t asleep yet. He also knew that after lovemaking, Vanyel was more willing to talk about things he ordinarily kept to himself. Stefen tried not to take advantage of that fact _too_ often.

“I can feel you thinking,” Van murmured. For a moment Stefen considered letting it lie, since Vanyel wasn’t the type to press him for answers if he didn’t want to give them, or at least needed time to gather his thoughts (or his courage). Vanyel himself had more than his share of secrets and things that were painful to recollect. Which was exactly why he was hesitant to bring up what was on his mind; in all their conversations during their frustrating courtship, Vanyel had never talked about his past lovers, even though Stefen had casually mentioned a few of his, in an attempt to draw him out, and obliquely let the Herald know he was shaych. Stefen had to assume that meant there were probably some painful memories in Vanyel’s romantic history, Tylendel notwithstanding.

But he wanted to know; he told Vanyel their first night he wanted more than friendship; he wanted to give Van the parts of himself that he wouldn’t give to someone he was only friends with, and he wanted Vanyel to do the same. So.

“I was just wondering,” Stefen began diffidently, “who was the last, before me?”

“Lover, you mean?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. “I was wondering when you would ask about that.” He rolled off of Stefen to lay on his side, arm tucked up beneath his head. Stefen rolled over to face him, mirroring his pose.

Van closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them again. “His name was Braden, and he was a law clerk. It was…eight years ago, not long after Randi posted me to Haven permanently. We met through a mutual acquaintance, someone who was training me and helping me get settled into the job. He was…everything you’re supposed to want. Handsome and charming. Intelligent with a sense of humor.”

“But?”

Vanyel half smiled. “But we only lasted a few months before I broke it off. He was starting to get,” he paused for moment, searching for the right words. “He was starting to get _comfortable_ , demanding more of my time than I could give, or _wanted_ to give.”

“And this was eight years ago?” Stefen found that difficult to contemplate.

Vanyel looked away, with a small, sad smile. “It seemed that everyone I met was like Braden, in a way. Most people just can’t understand that I can’t put them first, or even second. All I wanted from a lover was just…someone to relax with, when I had the time. And I knew it wasn’t fair, to expect someone to be available for _me_ and not make myself available for _him_. It began to seem a futile effort, and more than that; when things started to go sour it was a distraction. I couldn’t afford that, then and now.”

Stef’s eyes went distant, suddenly feeling the weight of all those lonely years. He reached over and stroked Vanyel’s sweaty hair away from his forehead.

“Don’t be sad for me, love,” Vanyel said, breaking his reverie. And then Stefen felt something else from Vanyel, a complicated jumble of emotions; the joy they’d just experienced together, comfort, contentment, reverence. Love. And the surprised happiness that he had found it again.

“You were worth the wait,” he said, pulling Stefen’s hand down to his lips, and pressing a gentle kiss against his fingers. Stefen smiled weakly at him. He only hoped that what he could do was enough to balance out all the sadness and loneliness in his lifebonded’s past.

The moment passed, and Stefen picked up the conversation. “So, Braden,” he said, holding up one finger. Then he held up another finger and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Oh, Havens,” Van said, rolling his eyes.

“Come on, I’ve told you about _my_ significant romantic encounters. Fair is fair,” he argued.

“Well,” he vacillated, “There haven’t been many, as you know. I’ve never actually sought out lovers; it’s always been a matter of the right person at the right time. But no one you really know.”

“No one I really _know_ ,” Stefen pressed, “or no one I really know _of_?” he asked, sensing Vanyel's reluctance to talk about it any further.

Vanyel sighed with resignation. “All right. When I was training in k’Treva, there was one Tayledras scout. Ambermoon. He was the first after…” he gestured vaguely. “After Tylendel. Hawkbrothers are very liberal, sexually….” And Stefen was nowhere near too innocent to be able to read between _those_ lines. He badly wanted to steer the conversation down that very interesting path, but he decided it was best to let Van ramble. He could come back to it later.

“After Ambermoon…after I got back to Haven, there was…” he looked at Stefen hesitantly. “Randi.”

“Randi as in _Randale_?” Stefen pushed himself up on his elbow to look down at Vanyel. “You slept with the _king_?” 

“He wasn’t king then. He wasn’t even the Heir yet; his father was still alive. He was just another Herald at the time.” Vanyel looked down almost as if he were embarrassed to admit it.

“Was it just once, or more than once?”

“More than once,” Van admitted. “And, gods Stef, I know I can trust you to keep this to yourself, but I promised him I would never tell anyone.”

Stefen raised an eyebrow at that; that certainly explained why he was suddenly acting so evasive. Break a promise to one of your oldest friends, or lie or withhold the truth from your lifebonded? But Stefen wasn’t sorry he’d made him tell. “But what about Shavri?”

Vanyel turned over onto his stomach and buried his face in the pillow. “Hadn’t met her yet,” came his muffled reply. “And when he did…”

“You didn’t take it well.”

Van lifted his head and propped himself up on his elbows. “You have a talent for understatement, lover. No, I did not take it well. Even though I wasn’t under any illusions about being in love with him, I still cared about him. And I was lonely. When I first got back to Haven…you can’t even imagine how difficult it was. Half the Heralds acted as if I would shatter if they so much as looked at me sideways, the other half simply didn’t know what to make of me. Mardic and Donni were on circuit. My sister was posted at the Border. Randi was the only one who was willing to actually get to _know_ me instead of relying on all the rumors and gossip about me. So when he lifebonded with Shavri—you know what it’s like. All he could think or talk about was her. All he wanted to do was be with her. And he made me swear to never breathe a word that we’d been lovers to anyone, _especially_ not to Shavri. It was hard not to feel betrayed.”

Stefen looked at him sympathetically. Great good gods, he really _hadn’t_ ever been lucky in love, had he? 

“Anyway. I…let’s just say I was not on my best behavior where Shavri was concerned. And she wasn’t a fool, she knew I was deliberately slighting her, although she couldn’t know why. She confronted me, the whole mess came spilling out, and I wish I could say that was the end of it, but,” he smiled ruefully. “You know me. I was still hurting, so I just shut everyone out. Then I was sent north to take out a gang of bandits that had managed to recruit a few hedge-wizards, and by the time I got back, I’d managed to pull my head out of my ass.”

“Temporarily,” Stefen interjected. Van managed an ironic grin.

“Sooooo, after Randi…” Stef held up a fourth finger.

“After Randi, it was…another couple of years. I was sent on another mission, got banged up, the Healer that put me back together was shaych. That was just once, though. Then…the next _serious_ lover I had was Tantras.”

“Have you slept with _all_ your friends?” Stefen asked incredulously. He was suddenly acutely aware of just how brief a time he had known Vanyel. Of how probably everyone else who knew Vanyel already knew at least _some_ of what was fresh news to him.

“Just—“ he was interrupted by a yawn “—those two. And you,” he said with a sleepy smile, as he closed his eyes and pillowed his head on his arms. “It was after the war began. I’d just got back from my first tour of the Border.” He opened his eyes, looking sad, remembering. “I did what I had to do while I was there, but after I got back, I didn’t know how to cope. I had sessions with a Mindhealer, of course, but there’s only so much they can do. The rest was up to me. So, anyway, we just sort of…happened. And with him, it was different than with Randi. Both of my relationships with them were more about comfort than love or passion. But Tantras was there the night I was Chosen. He knew Tylendel. He really _understood_ what it meant when I went to bed with him.

“That winter was…I don’t think I could have made it without Tran. He kept me grounded, kept me sane. You know I have nightmares sometimes, about things that happened when I was at the front. I used to have them every night. I used to go days without being able to sleep.”

 _Tantras_. Stefen had never figured him for having shaych leanings, or Randale for that matter. But Randale was lifebonded to Shavri now. Tantras was unpaired and likely to remain so. It wasn’t so much that he was afraid Vanyel would throw him over to rekindle things with Tran, or that Tantras would be jealous of _him_. But it was difficult not to feel…at a disadvantage, he supposed was a good way to put it. 

“Neither of them meant half as much to me as you do,” Vanyel said, his damned Empathy and the lifebond letting him know what Stefen was feeling, and his intuition giving him an accurate guess of _why_ he was feeling that way. 

“I know, it’s just…” He half shrugged. “I feel like I’m at a disadvantage here. I haven’t known you nearly as long as Tran or Randi.”

“I’m not lifebonded to Tran or Randi,” he pointed out.

“I know. And I _did_ ask,” he said with a bemused shake of his head. “So, what are we up to, seven?”

“Hmm. Jonne.” He suddenly grinned. “He was a guardsman I met at the Border; I needed to get to Ravensfell Pass, but a storm had knocked some trees down across the road and left them otherwise impassable. Jonne knew the country better than anyone, and he said there was a shortcut through the forest. It ended up taking at least as long as the road would have, since there was another storm that caused massive flooding.” He paused again, looking for the words he needed. “Jonne was…I told you that with Randi and Tran it was about comfort. With Jonne it was definitely about _passion_. He was…gentle, but forceful. Deferential, but with an air of authority. Once he got over the shock that, yes, I _was_ shaych, and yes, I _was_ interested in him, he…he was very _skilled_.” 

“ _Skilled_ , you say,” Stefen asked blandly. 

“Oh quite,” Van said offhandedly, playing the game right back. “I learned a lot about clouds, and stars. Also grass. I got to be quite flexible,” he said, completely straightfaced.

Stefen chuckled. “Flexibility is a useful skill, isn’t it?”

“So I have found,” Vanyel replied with a huge grin, turning back onto his side. “And—that’s mostly it. The significant encounters, as you put it. There were a few more Bradens, when I stayed in one place long enough to meet them and give them a chance.”

“Hmmm. You know,” Stefen said, looking down at his hand in an obviously faux casual manner. “You elaborated quite a bit about all of them, except that Hawkbrother. What was his name?” Stefen remembered perfectly well what his name was.

Van looked back at him with a wry expression. “I should have known you’d latch on to that.” He sighed, rolling onto his back and folding his hands over his chest. “Ambermoon. He…my time with him was also very _instructional_. We were together for a few weeks when he started making…suggestions. The first thing he suggested was that it might be fun if I let him hold me down when we were having sex. That was easy enough, and when he saw I liked it, he asked me if I would let him bind my hands. I wasn’t sure about that,” he said with an amused grin. “It was a while before I agreed to it. But eventually I always did agree to what he wanted, after I had enough time to think about it. I realized rather quickly I took pleasure in being bound, but pain—it was a long time before I was willing to let him strike me. He never pressed me to do anything, mind,” he said quickly. “He would just tell me what he wanted, that other men he had been with enjoyed it, and leave it at that. If I wanted to actually try it, I had to ask him. But the first time I let him strike me…” his eyes were distant. “He only used the flat of his hand. Not terribly hard. But the first time I tasted it—the sharp, focused sting in the beginning, then the spreading pain and warmth—

“It was more than that, though. I liked most of all being at his mercy. Being _his_. But, you know, now that I think about it, I felt the same way with Tylendel.”

Stefen’s focus sharpened. He had never, ever brought up Tylendel, or expected Vanyel to. 

“There really wasn’t anything I would have denied him, had he asked. Even if he hadn’t.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I was a young, inexperienced fool, not only when it came to sex, but love as well. I thought I had to give him everything. Do whatever he wanted. It never occurred to me to ask him to do the same. That I was _owed_ the same. I’m rather afraid he ran roughshod over me.”

Stefen looked down at Vanyel with astonishment. This—this _recrimination_ when it came to his first lifebonded wasn’t what he’d expected. 

“And I guess part of why that happened," he continued, "why I _let_ it happen, is that I enjoy submitting to my lovers. I didn’t really understand or have words for it back then, of course. I just knew how much I loved him and loved having sex with him, and if it felt that good, that _right_ , then it had to be.

“Oh, I know what you were expecting,” he said, noticing Stefen’s surprised expression. “But twenty years is more than enough time to give me a better perspective. There was certainly a time when I idolized him, when I wouldn’t or couldn’t think ill of him. And I certainly don’t believe that he ever intentionally made me think I _had_ to give all of myself to him. He just had a very forceful personality. He swallowed me up.”

“Oh,” was all Stefen said. "That's...that's not how you feel about me, is it?" he asked suddenly anxious. 

"Gods, no." he said, amused. "No. I am quite your equal."

"Good," Stefen replied, settling down beside him. "And thank you. I'm glad you told me."


End file.
